India gets its largest greenfield airport, operations to start in December
NMIA will be named after politician and social activist late DB Patil.
NMIA will be named after politician and social activist late DB Patil.
NMIA will be named after politician and social activist late DB Patil.
Navi Mumbai: Scripting history, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday inaugurated the Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA), the country’s largest greenfield airport. Addressing the inaugural ceremony, Modi described NMIA as a "glimpse of Viksit Bharat", or developed India, that will help make the Mumbai region Asia's biggest connectivity hub.
The first phase of NMIA has been built at a cost of Rs 19,650 crore and is set to be operational in December, reported PTI. Spread across 1,160 hectares, the airport will have one terminal and one runway in the first phase with an annual passenger handling capacity of 20 million. This is the second airport in Mumbai region.
"The long wait of Mumbai is over as the city has now got its second airport, which will also help Maharashtra's farmers get connected with supermarkets in Europe and the US," Modi said after inaugurating the aviation project.
The airport will play a significant role in making the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Asia' biggest connectivity hub, the PM declared.
NMIA is set to significantly boost India's aviation capacity and ease the heavy traffic burden on Mumbai's existing Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport.
"This is a project that has a glimpse of Viksit Bharat (developed India). The airport will attract fresh investments and create new job opportunities, the PM noted.
Modi also highlighted the growth of the country's aviation sector and pointed out how it has evolved and expanded under his leadership since 2014.
India, which is the world's third largest domestic aviation market, had just 74 airports in 2014, but their number has gone up to more than 160 in the last 11 years, the Prime Minister said, suggesting his government's focus on the key sector. According to him, lakhs of people have taken to the skies with the government's regional air connectivity scheme UDAN.
Highlighting that Indian airlines have placed orders for more than 1,000 new aircraft, Modi said the target is to make the country a global MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul) hub.
Speaking on the occasion, Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said NMIA will help create around two lakh job opportunities and make Mumbai the country's aviation capital.
Maharashtra Governor Acharya Devvrat, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, his deputies Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar, Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani and Minister of State for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol also attended the ceremony.
NMIA received the aerodrome licence from the regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on September 30.
First airport connected by water taxi
According to a release from the Prime Minister's Office, NMIA will be the first airport in the country to be connected by water taxi.The entire project is being developed in multiple phases by Navi Mumbai International Airport Ltd (NMIAL), a company in which the Adani Group has a 74 per cent stake with the remaining 26 per cent held by the Maharashtra government's town planning and development agency CIDCO.
NMIA, upon completion of all phases, will have four terminals with a capacity of 90 million passengers per annum and a cargo capacity of 3.25 million metric tonnes, making it one of the largest aviation hubs in Asia.
The airport will have an Automated People Mover (APM), a transit system planned to connect all four passenger terminals, landside APM linking the city-side infrastructure and a dedicated storage for Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), among others, the statement had said.
NMIA will be named after politician and social activist late DB Patil, who is widely hailed for his work that ensured project-affected persons in the region received rightful compensation. It will be officially known as 'Loknete DB Patil Navi Mumbai International Airport'.